An Excerpt from Elisa Adams's Whose Afterlife is this Anyway?

Luke nearly growled as the sudden need to taste her filled him. He didn’t often lose control, but her showing up fifteen minutes early had kept him from taking the edge off his hunger with a quick feeding. Now it reared up full force, taking away any semblance of the gentleman he possessed. His breaths came heavy and ragged as the hunger rushed through his body. He could almost feel the blood pounding in her veins, and he licked his lips. She’d be so soft, so sweet, so…

Her eyes wide, she backed toward the SUV. “Luke? Are you okay?”

Shit. He’d scared her. Her words had an oddly calming effect on the beast raging inside him. His control returned, little by little, until he had almost half of it back. It wasn’t much to work with, but it would have to do. If she hadn’t spoken… Strange that a human woman would be able to accomplish something he hadn’t been able to do on his own. He looked down at her, helpless to hide his awe.

“Do you know how sexy you look in moonlight?” he asked softly. Truthfully. The pale, blue glow of the nearly full moon bathed her hair in washed silver hues and made her skin glisten. Her eyes sparkled, and though he knew it was a trick of the light, her gaze seemed to beckon him closer. Her lips parted, her tongue briefly touching the bottom one. Luke’s stomach turned inside out. Torn between wanting to protect her and wanting to possess her, he reached for a lock of her hair and wrapped it around his finger.

She gulped, her eyes widening even more, and he smiled. He tugged on the hair and pulled her closer, reveling in the scent of warm vanilla and strawberries. He felt his incisors fully elongate into fangs, wanting to bury them in that delectable neck, and he shuddered.

The sane, decent part of him made a final plea for sanity. She’s the wrong one. Leave her alone. Wanting her could be trouble.

He knew it, too. He didn’t bother to ignore it. But he also wouldn’t deny the lust curling in his gut. Something nagged at him from the back of his mind. A warning. That if he took this too far, there would be no turning back.

What is that all about? It’s just one touch. One kiss. Nobody said a thing about forever.

Long-term didn’t even enter into the equation. Luke wanted to fuck the woman, not marry her. Needing to prove to himself that he could touch her and walk away, he leaned down and kissed her.

Big mistake. It hit him the second his lips touched hers. The feeling started low in his gut, but spread to his limbs and went straight to the top of his head. He couldn’t describe what it was exactly, only that he’d never known it with another woman. She tasted right, felt right. But she wasn’t right. She couldn’t be.

He should not have touched her. Ever. She could be a serious threat to his lifestyle, as well as his sanity. Horrified as he was, since he’d already committed the faux pas, he couldn’t have stopped himself from touching her again, even if he tried.

She wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed him back, and Luke gave in to every lustful thought and emotion he’d had since the first time he’d gotten a whiff of her sweet scent.

Their tongues tangled, teeth nipped, lips caressed until he thought about pulling her into the backseat of his SUV and having his way with her. Right there in the parking lot. Being a man who very much enjoyed the comforts of a big, soft bed, the thought surprised him.

That, along with her soft moan, proved to be the catalyst forcing him to break the kiss. With a muttered curse Luke turned away and willed his teeth to slide back into a more normal form. Well, to her perception, at least. Her warm palm settling on the back of his shoulder didn’t help.

“Are you okay?”

He nodded. He would be. In about a thousand years.

When he’d first pegged Carrie Holiday as trouble, he hadn’t had any idea how true his assessment was. He barely knew the woman, yet he understood that on some primal level she had the ability to turn the world as he knew it upside down. She had no idea of the hold she had over him. Nor would she ever find out. To give a woman that kind of power could mean certain death and destruction. And then Luke turned and caught sight of her glazed, lust-filled expression and pouty pink lips.

Hell. What was a little death and destruction?

Damn. What a way to go.

© Elisa Adams, July 2007
All Rights Reserved